Black
Country is an area of the West Midlands metropolitan county in England, north
and west of Birmingham. It includes parts of the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell,
Walsall and Wolverhampton. During the Industrial Revolution, it became one of
the most industrialised parts of Britain with coal mines, coking, iron
foundries and steel mills producing a high level of air pollution.The region gained its
name in the mid nineteenth century due to the smoke from the many thousands of
ironworking foundries and forges plus also the working of the shallow and 30ft
thick coal seams. Elihu Burritt, the American Consul to Birmingham in 1862,
described the area 'Black by day and red by night'.

Irene.

It
mizzled the night you died

but you’d already gone

back
to your owd mon’s garden

with
your yellow frock on.

In
the beds, goosegogs furred,

peas
climbed cane wigwams,

your
brothers shirt danced

on
the line. And you, thirteen

again,
sensing light above,

raised
your hand to shade

your
eyes from the sun.

Mizzled/
rained: owd mon/ dad

Liz
Berry was born in this region & still lives there now (Birmingham), so it
makes perfect sense for her debut collection of poetry to be set there as well,
but what makes this collection stand out is the language used. Liz Berry has
drawn on the dialect of the Black Country and by combining this with its
history & her own has created an extraordinary collection of poetry rooted
into the landscape and yet at that same instant somersaulting, turning as
though a bird in flight. The words come off the page almost as if they were
incantations as though by reciting the “owd words” you are not merely harking
back to the past but raising it fully formed into the present, with the dialect
forming a vital part of the poems not just as some form of tranklement, (love that word) but a way of
placing this region its landscape and people on the map. This is not just a
wonderful personal debut collection of poetry it’s a paean to a world that is
changing, to a landscape that was carved out for a specific purpose, that now
no longer exists. Liz Berry’s Black country, is like the region - there’s a
darkness born out of the landscape, but there is also a humour, a tenderness
that reflects it’s people and is there as a defence against all that the
darkness represents.

Homing.

For
years you kept your accent

in
a box beneath the bed

the
lock rusted shut by hours of elocution

how now brown cow

the
teacher’s ruler across your legs.

We
heard it escape sometimes,

A
guttural uh on the phone to your
sister,

saft or blart to a taxi driver

unpacking
your bags from his boot.

I
loved itsthick drawl, g’s that rang.

Clearing
your house, the only thing

I
wanted was that box, jemmied open

To
let years of lost words spill out –

Bibble, fittle, tay,
wum,

vowells
ferrous as nails, consonants

you
could lick the coal from.

I
wanted to swallow them all: the pits

Railways,
factories thunking and clanging

The
night shift, the red brick

Back-to-back
you were born in.

I
wanted to forge your voice

In
my mouth, a blacksmith’s furnace;

Shout
it from the roofs,

Send
your words, like pigeons,

fluttering
for home.

Black
Country (Chatto & Windus, 2014), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation,
received a Somerset Maugham Award and won the Forward Prize for Best First
Collection 2014, it was also chosen as a book of the year by The Guardian, The
Telegraph, The Mail, The Big Issue and The Morning Star.

Liz
Berry received an Eric Gregory Award in 2009, an Arvon-Jerwood Mentorship in
2011 and won the Poetry London competition in 2012. Her pamphlet The Patron
Saint of Schoolgirls was published by Tall Lighthouse in 2010. Her poems have
appeared in many magazines and anthologies, been broadcast on BBC Radio and
recorded for the Poetry Archive.

Points of View

“These are poems of great vitality and charm. Seasoned with the dialect of Liz Berry’s home territory, but with a linguistic and lyric freshness independent of that, they offer nourishment – right bostin fittle, in fact – to readers hungry for the real thing.” (Christopher Reid)

“Ecstatic, quicksilver poems, ablaze with originality, curiosity and a passion for words.” (Ruth Padel)"Liz Berry makes you look at the world differently. Her book is a real appreciation of a place that’s not often appreciated. She is a fresh, exciting and distinctive new voice. Her work is that rare thing, a collection that leaves you feeling full of real optimism and hope"(Jeremy Paxman, Forward Prize Judge)"I have wondered why the wit, warmth and energy of the West Midlands had no voice amongst the younger English poets. Now it has. Liz Berry is the Black Country’s shining daughter."(Alison Brackenbury)

"Superb… a sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands, scattered with words of dialect that light up the lines like lamps. Expect to hear a great deal more from her in years to come.(Sarah Crown, Guardian)"

Hi Brian, being an English chap from the southern counties (Kent ) I often have trouble with the dialect from other regions of this Isle. But I'm happy that they exist and that I have access to colloquialisms from these parts as I believe they enhance the language and stop it becoming a dead language. Also being used within poetry adds another element to the verse and possibly a political edge particularly when the region's past has been defined in a specific way that due to economics has been sidelined. But apart from that I just love the way certain words sound I mean "tranklement " just love that word.

I like 'Homing', but I really don't like reading things written in dialect. Recently, I wrote about Dunbar, the American poet, and his poems written in dialect just rotted my socks. People in his day loved them, but I didn't. Dialect raises all sorts of political issues such as class, socio-economic 'placement', stereotypes, etc., and those are important things, but I just don't like reading dialect. Trainspotting nearly broke my brain.

These poems remind me somewhat of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" ('Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...), but of course, the unusual words in these poems are part of an actual dialect. Nevertheless, this is the first thing that came to mind when I read these poems.

I've always wanted to visit England, especially the moors, as I'm a Bronte addict. Is the Black Country considered part of the moors? Forgive my ignorance, if you will, and please enlighten me.

I can almost hear the poet herself reading these words, hear the soft rolling of them off her tongue.

I especially love your comment that Berry has "...created an extraordinary collection of poetry rooted into the landscape and yet at that same instant somersaulting, turning as though a bird in flight." Beautiful.

Hi Violet, I personally enjoy Welsh's writing & use of dialect but can understand that it can be an obstacle to reading his books. As to Homing I love that poem it's why I got the bookout of the library.

Hi Maria yes I can see that with the way the words are formed. The Bronte's moors were West Yorkshire which is north from the black country which is in the Midlands. If you look online you can find her reading her poetry